I rise to speak to new clause 7, which is in my name, and has been kindly supported by Members from eight different parties, including immigration and NHS subject experts, for which I am exceedingly grateful. I would like to declare an interest: my partner is an NHS clinician from overseas, but this new clause would not benefit him as he already has his permanent residency status confirmed.
In this country, we typically use the word “hero” far too casually; it is lavished on our celebrities and sports stars, but, while I am sure they are very deserving, this pandemic has shown us who this country’s true heroes are—our NHS workforce. While the entire NHS has played a vital role, our thanks and gratitude should perhaps go in particular to our NHS clinical workers who have come from other countries. They are individuals who have travelled huge distances to be here, often separated from their families, putting their own lives at risk to help save our lives. Regardless of their or our citizenship, the duty and responsibility to care and contribute to the wellbeing of others always comes first with them.
Although I welcome the many steps that the Government have taken already for foreign NHS workers, we need to go further, and I ask the Minister to give this some serious consideration for support this afternoon. With fees for indefinite leave to remain at almost £2,400 and citizenship applications at another £1,330, the total cost of naturalisation is almost £4,000—one of the highest fees of its type in the world, and that is after a minimum of five years, in which there will also have been an initial visa cost, another high fee to be renewed every third anniversary. The process of becoming a citizen for our NHS workers is a costly and challenging one.
Let us take as an example the case of Carrie. It is a real-life case, but I have used a different name. Carrie moved to the UK in 2016, leaving behind a husband and a four-year old child back home in south Asia. It took another year for her husband and daughter to join her because of the costs involved in dependants’ visas. They could only get to be together as a family once more by taking a loan, which she has to pay for over three years.
Three years after she arrived—so with still one more year of loan payments to go—she had to get another loan and compound her cash flow problems because she was due for visa renewal, and so had a load more fees. This year, Carrie is entitled to apply for indefinite leave to remain, with loans still ongoing from previous renewals, and the ILR is more expensive again. What does she do? What options are available to Carrie? Her only choice is to apply for another loan, even bigger than before, to have the right to occupy a space in the UK and call it home. She pays her taxes every month, and has done so for five years—and oh, by the way, she is an intensive care unit nurse. She has spent the past five years, especially the past 18 months, saving lives. She should not be in debt; we should be in her debt.
I feel that it is our duty to create a new route to permanent residency for NHS workers, one that will not leave them in debt, poverty, or in constant worry about funding their next application, and that is by abolishing the costs associated with applying for indefinite leave to remain for NHS clinical workers.
I am proud that our NHS attracts such global talent and recruits from around the world, and, frankly, we would not be able to run it without them. As of last
year, more than 160,000 NHS staff stated that they were of a non-British nationality, from more than 200 different countries. Residency should not be about cost; it should be about inclusion, about our communities and about contribution. Arguably, by saving our lives and keeping us safe, our NHS workers have given the biggest contribution of all.
Despite being such valued members of the communities in which they live and work, without ILR and citizenship, individuals cannot be fully part of them. Without ILR, they face barriers to home ownership, difficulty obtaining a mortgage and challenges in the job market and in higher education—there are so many different aspects. Scrapping the fees would not only make ILR more affordable and a viable option for foreign workers in our NHS, but create a more diverse and, crucially, more integrated society. Why is that important? A few weeks ago, I had a message from my partner, who was distressed at having met a new patient that morning who said, “I hope you’re not from Myanmar.” We have a long way still to go with integration and acceptance.
People from other countries who have worked in the NHS during the pandemic and throughout their lives deserve to be able to call the UK home, and actually feel like it is. It is time to abolish the fees for indefinite leave to remain for those who do clinical work in our NHS, so that those who spend time helping and treating us in our time of need can finally feel like they belong and are welcomed here with open arms.